


The Touch of Words

by Sexycanofsoup



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Canon verse, M/M, dirty talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-11
Updated: 2015-02-11
Packaged: 2018-03-11 15:12:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3330542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sexycanofsoup/pseuds/Sexycanofsoup
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Levi returns from an expedition with Erwin his nerves are shot. His body betrays him and doesn't even allow the man he loves to touch him. He grows frustrated as he tries to hold Erwin, but fails. However his clever partner thinks of an alternative. Sometimes you only need words to drive a person crazy, and Erwin's determination allows Levi to get everything he needs with just his voice alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Touch of Words

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to all my followers on tumblr! This fic is a celebration of reaching the 1,000 follower mark.

It happens the night after they come back from an expedition. Neither of them get hurt, but Erwin can tell by the way Levi can't seem to keep his hunted eyes off him that he's feeling shaken and needy. But even though Erwin can see the craving in his partner’s eyes, Levi is also on edge, his nerves a razor wire, so that whenever Erwin goes to embrace him he freezes, his body stiff and unyielding.

"I don't know what's wrong with me," Levi mutters.

But Erwin can understand. Sometimes you can get so wound up beyond the wall that relaxing becomes impossible for days afterward.

"We don't have to do anything tonight," Erwin assures him. They’ve been back in their quarters for a while now. They’d both hoped that after a bath and some tea Levi would have found calm, but his condition remains the same.

"No,” Levi protests, his voice nearly a snarl with his frustration. “I want to fuck.”

But it's obvious that it's impossible, because the small captain jerks whenever Erwin so much as puts his hand on his arm.

"I hate this," Levi says, his voice small and uncharacteristically vulnerable as he jumps out of Erwin's arms for the tenth time. "Why am I like this? I want you, I want to hold you, but my body just...it won't let me."

Erwin's heart squeezes tight as he feels the frustration coming off his partner like a physical wave of heat. He knows that telling Levi that it's okay won't help. He knows that what he needs to do is get him to relax. But he can't think of any way to do it until several minutes later when he calls Levi's name and sees the man shiver. That's when he realizes he can touch the man with his words even if he can't with his hands.

"Take off your clothes, Levi," he instructs, "And lie down on the bed."

Levi, who has long learned to follow Erwin's every word, questions nothing and does as he's asked. Erwin doesn't undress though. He just sits down on the edge of the bed, not touching his partner as he looks at him with an old love that only comes after many years.

Levi looks at him, and Erwin sees the trust that binds them together. There is nothing more in the world that he treasures than that trust. His burden may be heavy, and life outside the walls cruel, but he wouldn't exchange his life for any other so long as he has Levi. And that's when he begins to speak. With just his words he begins to tell Levi about that love. About how deep it runs, and the nature of it. How it burns in his chest like a bright fire, but how it also thrums through him like a steady trail of light, never fading, always deepening.

He watches Levi's eyes fall closed and his hands uncurls as he begins to relax. Levi doesn't say anything, but he doesn't have to. Their relationship has long been the kind where they don't find words necessary to communicate. 

It’s soon after he watches the tight lines in Levi's forehead smooth out that Erwin switches his mode of speech. Now he begins to tell Levi about what it feels like to touch him. How his fingers can recognize Levi's body no matter what state he's in, and that he only has to breathe in Levi's scent and find his lips to feel at home. He tells Levi about the way his breath still hitches in his throat when he sees his partner naked, even though it's been so many years, and about the always relief he feels when their bodies come together without the barrier of clothes. He recounts to Levi the story of their first time together. How the whole time he'd been seized with incredulity because he couldn't believe that Levi, the man he'd wanted for so long, actually wanted him back. He tells him about the magic of his skin, how breathless it makes him, and how when he's touching Levi nothing else exists. He isn't commander when he's with Levi, and there are no Titans trying to break the walls. There's just love and urgency and magic.

"Erwin..."

It's the only word Levi says, but by the way he breathes it, like it's burning his throat, that Erwin knows he's ready. That's when Erwin switches modes again--this time to the present. He leans in a little closer and begins to tell his lover, this person who he would never want to live without, exactly what he wants to do to him.

"I would touch your hands first, Levi," he says. "You know how much I love them. They manage to be both delicate and strong, perfect for the way you slay titans, but also perfect for how they feel against my skin. I would bring them to my mouth and kiss them, because you do so much for me with those hands, Levi. You do so much for humanity with them, but right now all I can think about is me and you because when you’re here like this, in front of me, the ugliness of this world fades and I’m overcome Levi. All of them say I’m immovable, but that’s because they’ve never seen me with you. Not like this. Because I don’t let them see this, Levi. This belongs to just us, and that’s precious to me.”

Levi is blushing. It’s faint, but by this time the color has spread down from Levi’s face and neck to bloom on his chest. He’s such a beautiful creature. Erwin always thought so, even the first time he’d met him when Levi had been covered in underground grime. But even though Erwin has shared this opinion with Levi many times, his partner still isn’t fully used to it yet, and Erwin secretly hopes he will forever be able to fluster him this way, because his blush is so beautiful. It spurns Erwin on.

“Next I would slide my hands up your arms. I love how smooth your skin is, Levi. I dream about it whenever I’m apart from you. And I love the way your muscles move beneath that skin. Every movement of yours is graceful Levi, much like a cat, but more beautiful than any cat. If I stare at you too long I can feel my eyes grow heavy and my pulse sharpen. Your body lights a fire in me Levi. It gives me strength, but it also leaves me weak. I’m so weak for you, Levi. Sometimes I could scream from it.”

Levi lets out a soft sound. It’s almost all breath, but there’s the smallest trace of his voice, too, and Erwin wants to hear more of it.

“When you’re bare to me like this, Levi, I almost don’t know where to put my hands. All of you is beautiful. But after your arms I would have to make a choice—your face, or your chest. This time I believe I’d choose your face, because after expeditions I need to see you, really see you, so badly, and because of that I can’t stand to tear my eyes away from yours and that’s why holding tight to your face, smoothing my thumbs across your jaw and lips, and letting my other fingers trail down your neck, is everything I need, Levi.”

Levi repeats Erwin’s name again, this time it is a little more urgent. Erwin knows that this is the time to press onward.

“But as much as I just want to stay like that, cradling your face, my forehead pressed to yours, the desire building in my gut won’t let me. It stretches me out from the inside and makes my fingers tighter, needier. My body starts to ache with the want, and so my hands move. They slide down your chest and I get a sharp thrill by the way I see your body react to my touch. The best is when you arch into my hands as if you can’t get enough. That’s when I feel strongest, Levi. When I feel wanted by you I feel my sense of worth return. When people accuse you of being a machine, you feel like you’ll start to turn into one, but you bring me back, Levi. Your touch always brings me back. It helps clear the numbness away and breathes life back into nerve endings dulled with the pain and sacrifice of others. You’re my guiding light, the thing that calls to me most, and as your body reacts, moving, twisting, the muscles gliding beneath the surface I feel your love and sometimes I even feel deserving of it.”

Levi turns his hands palm up on the sheets and spreads his arms so that one comes to within an inch of Erwin—he doesn’t touch it though.

“My hands find your hips and I squeeze them, I can never resist. I love the power that resides in them, how it’s there right beneath the surface. But you never use that power against me unless I ask for it.”

At this point Erwin’s hands are aching to touch his partner, but he resists.

“I slide my hands down your thighs. They’re beginning to tremble. They want more and I’m not giving you enough. You’re always urging you to go faster, but I’m an old cautious man and I can’t help my slow appreciation.”

He smiles as he watches the corners of Levi’s mouth twitch up.

_We drive each other crazy, don’t we, love?_ He thinks. _And we must be idiots because we love every second of it._

“You want my mouth then, and I know it, but I don’t give it to you, Levi. Not yet. Instead I push your thighs apart. My thumbs slide up the creases near your crotch but I don’t go closer. I’m waiting to see your erection weep for me, and it’s not nearly at that stage yet.”

Levi makes another sound. This time it sounds suspiciously like the word “asshole.” Erwin smiles again.

“My hands tighten on your thighs as I begin to massage them. Your muscles are always so tightly wound, Levi. You never relax enough. But loosening your tired body is a chore I delight it, and you know it. It makes me wonder if you wind yourself up on purpose just for that.”

Erwin presses his hands to his own thighs to keep them from moving.

“I move down your leg, massaging every muscle group, until I get to your feet. I love them almost as much as I love your hands. They’re so much smaller than mine. I always wonder how they can hold you up—such small feet can’t possibly support that terrible a personality.”

He hears a small sound from Levi that he knows to be a laugh.

“I massage your legs and feet until they start to feel boneless. That’s when I nudge you, and you know to turn over. I slide my hands up your legs, bypassing your ass, and go straight to your neck. I begin again there, pushing my fingers into your skin, kneading you with all the strength in my hands. It’s too much for everyone else, but you love how strongly I do it. You’ve always been able to take everything I can give.”

_And there’s no one else like you_ , Erwin thinks. He doesn’t need to say the words, Levi already knows them.

“I continue to your shoulders. Those are always the most tense. Maybe it’s because of all the lives you carry. But I work them out. I don’t care how much time I need, touching you is my purest pleasure and I’d spend all my time doing it if I could. So I work out the knots in your shoulders and arms and move to your back. I want to put my mouth all over you at this point. Your breathing is heavy and the things that does to your body makes my blood roar, but I don’t. I want to finish what I started. So I massage your back. My hands are beginning to ache, but it’s a good ache, and it’s releasing some of the tension I feel in my own body. Your back muscles are beautiful of course. The way they move is mesmerizing, the muscle motions almost like a dance. I can never concentrate when you decide to train shirtless. I don’t have that kind of focus, and I probably never will. All the intellect of the leader of the survey corps undone by the sexiness of a single man. Maybe I should be ashamed of that, but I’m not. No one can take away the pleasure I feel from looking at you, Levi. When we weren’t lovers I used to spend hours watching you, not even bothering to hide it. And I still do, Levi. Only now when my arousal from you builds to unbearable levels I can shove you against a wall and feel your body undulate against mine like the fierce caged thing that lives inside my chest every time I think of fucking you.”

He lets the filthy word fall from his lips, the first one he’s used since they’ve returned, and it has the effect he wants. Levi shudders and his hips jerk off the bed. He’s fully erect and the head of his length is beginning to purple with need. It’s such a beautiful specimen. Erwin has always loved his partner’s genitalia. Always clean, smooth, and responsive to his touch. He’s seen larger and he’s seen smaller, but Levi is perfect, and he always will be, no matter what the ravages of time will do to his body.

Erwin himself is hard, but he tries to ignore that. He’s focusing on his partner.

“I finish with your back and my breath begins to quicken because there’s only one part left, but no, I don’t allow myself to touch your ass. Instead I finally give you my mouth. You push yourself up onto your elbows and twist your head around and let me kiss you. Your mouth is my heaven and I lose myself in it without ever worrying of finding the way back. I lose my restraint when I kiss you. I tug you close and twist my hands into your hair and moan because, lord help me, you taste so fucking good. I’m overwhelmed by the urge to consume you. No one makes me lose it like you do, Levi. And I love every second of it. I need that release that you give me, I only truly feel alive when I’m in your arms and drowning in your mouth. And so I kiss you with burning lips, and it’s wet and desperate and perfect and it just makes the caged thing in my chest roar for more. It wants so much of you, Levi, and it’s never satisfied.”

Levi’s hand twitches. Erwin knows that the man wants to touch himself, but he restrains his hand for the same reason Erwin does—because they’re both lost in the words.

“Teeth get involved, I’m tearing into you, and you into me, because we’re desperate men filled with a lust too strong for our bodies. I taste the blood in your lips and mine mixes with yours and it’s not enough, I need all of you. I can’t hold back anymore. My hands grab your hips, too much lust present to be gentle, and grind down on you once just because I will die if I don’t. Our erections burn when they touch each other and I could go blind from it, but I don’t let myself linger, I have too much work still to do. I don’t know where I find the control, but I tear myself off of you and flip you over and finally, _finally,_ let my hands have your ass.”

Levi lets out a moan, and hearing it Erwin can’t help but return the sound. But he’s not done, and so his voice returns, deeper and raspier than when he started, but still there.

“I remember the first time I saw your bare ass, Levi. I’d spent a lot of time staring at it, imagining it, wondering what it would look like as I fucked you into the mattress and tore screams from your lungs, but I didn’t see it until you finally graduated training and began to use the officers’ bathhouse. I’m not a religious man, Levi, and you know that, but I swear when I saw you, lithe and naked that first time I found god, if only for a moment. My mouth went dry and I ached so much that I split the skin on my knuckles with how hard I clenched them. It was the first time I felt how deeply the possibility to destroy me ran inside of you. I didn’t sleep that night, Levi. I was haunted by you. My eyes, whether open or closed saw only you and I felt the creeping of insanity begin to scratch at my skull. Before that point I had been determined to get you to fall for me, but it was that night that I realized I’d sacrifice everything I had—my position, the respect of my peers, and even humanity’s future, to get that wish. I was driven mad with lust for so long. I didn’t know what made you different. I fucked so many men raw just to try to get a trace of that feeling I got simply by looking at you, but I never did and I stopped trying. Eventually I couldn’t even get hard without the thought of you, and I gave up on ever wanting anyone else again. It had to be you, even before our love grew to the level it is now I knew it would only ever be you. Slowly, torturously I locked that lust under control. It no longer consumed me as it had. And I could think enough to truly love you. And love you I did, Levi. Every day I spent with you, training with you, talking to you, working with you by my side, made me fall harder.”

Erwin wasn’t sure why he was saying all this. He’d shared the story with Levi before, but still the words burned at his lips, needing to come out.

“I love you, Levi, and that will always and forever be true.”

Levi opened his eyes. They were burning coals as they sliced into Erwin. He said four words, and they were words Erwin most needed to hear.

“You are my life.”

_And you are mine_ , Erwin thought. He pressed a palm to his own chest but it didn’t do anything for the ache there.

Erwin almost gave up then—almost crawled atop Levi to consume him. But he stopped. He did it somehow, and found his words again.

“Turn over, Levi. I want to see it.”

Levi’s breath was punching out of him now, and before he rolled over onto his stomach, Erwin got one last look at Levi’s leaking erection. He felt muscles in his jaw twitch.

_Soon_ he told himself. But his mind was already full of it. He was taking Levi in his mouth, pushing his length down his throat and feeling the weight on his tongue. He knew exactly what Levi would taste like, and he wanted. He could tear at his skin with how much he wanted.

But there was Levi’s ass, and it was perfect, of course it was. The captain hadn’t earned the nickname “Humanity’s tightest” for no reason. And Erwin’s imagination was torn between the man’s erection and his ass and it was one of the toughest decisions he’d ever had to make.

“As my hands move over you I find your muscles relaxing, and that’s good, because I need you to be relaxed for what I’m going to do to you.”

Levi’s breath is ragged. Erwin hears it even though the smaller man is biting down on his thumb to hide it.

“I slide one thumb down your crack. I don’t dare go inside yet, but a moan rips out of me anyway. I know how every inch of you tastes, and those memories torture me because of how it makes my impatience grow. I’m still massaging your ass, harder, rougher, you cry out, but not from pain. You’ll shove at me if I don’t give into your demands soon. But I have no intention of drawing on your impatience tonight, my own is too much for that.”

It’s not just words, Erwin feels a very real impatience seizing hold of himself. He’d underestimated how this exercise could affect him. He’d meant this for Levi, but it was quickly becoming the toughest test in self-control he’d yet to face. His mind has always been a powerful weapon, but it is also a weakness because he can picture everything so clearly that he swears he can actually feel Levi’s skin on his hands and tongue, and it’s unspooling him rapidly.

“I want to slide my hand up beneath you to grip your erection, but I don’t. I want to enter you now, and do it swiftly. I don’t know how long I’ll last.”

Levi moans again, and this time it sounds like “hurry.”

“I get the oil and I make a fucking mess of it, my hands are shaking. You know how the need can do that to me. It feels like it’s been forever, but we’ve done this only a couple of days ago. It doesn’t matter. This need for you will never stop and I’ve long accepted that. I coat my hands and your ass with the oil, I know that more is better and I’m too far gone to deal in moderation. And then the torture ends, because I finally let myself have you. My hands peel apart your cheeks and I see your hole. You hate when I stare but I can’t help it. The way you quiver for me and suck me in, you know I lose it, Levi. You know what it does to me. How breathless I get when I call your name. Always your name Levi, the one thing that will save my damned soul. And so I look at you and forget how to breathe, how to speak, until my hands remember how to work and my fingers find your hole.”

Levi’s hands clench the bed sheets. “Please Erwin. _Please_.”

_Yes. Always. I will never keep anything from you, my Levi._

“I circle your hole. It’s trying to suck me in already, you always were so impatient, but you need to be prepared. I slick your crack with oil, my fingers brushing your hole repeatedly, circling it, teasing it. ‘Relax,’ I tell you, but even though you’ve had so much practice you still find it difficult. ‘fuck me.’ you always demand it, Levi, and you have every right to. My body is yours, of course. I live to please it, but I also live to protect it, and that’s why I don’t shove into you like I’m so clearly dying to. I ease the tip of one of my fingers inside, and even just that is intense because of your sucking heat. I will never have a day where I am not awed by the idea of being inside you, Levi. But I don’t rush. I refuse to give you pain because our unions should be only pleasure. Because pleasure is what you give me, Levi. With every word, every rare smile. Every touch, light or heavy. And so I ease that finger in and out, pulling at the edges of your hole, gently stretching you, and holding your hips down with my other hand so that you don’t ram yourself against me and hurt yourself. You never use your whole strength, because I can’t surpass it, and you know that I will hurt so terribly if I cause you pain and so you control yourself, biting back your desperate impatience as I prepare you. You use your voice though, sometimes pleading, sometimes cursing, but always you call my name, over and over and it’s my favorite thing Levi, my favorite sound to hear from your lips. I slip in another finger, scissoring inside you, my motions stretching you wider. I look for the spot inside you that drives the breath from your lungs, but no sooner do I find it do you hiss at me to forget it, to just finish the job because you need me inside. But I can’t give up on pleasuring you, Levi. You know that, but I do try to hurry. As I stretch you, I strike that spot as often as I can, and the cries that escape you burn my vision with red. A third finger, a fourth, my whole body is trembling. I can feel you. So close. I need it. I give up.”

“ _Yes_ ,” Levi gasps. “Now.”

“I yank your hips up. I’ve lost the grace of my movements entirely. I fear that my touch is that of a brute, but you never recoil. I jerk you around and your arms twine around my neck, one hand twisting tightly in my air as the other moves to grip my back. My erection is screaming for you, it wants and calls for no other body, and as I slide it against your crack, it threatens to explode. But it must wait. It knows the rules. You first. You always must be first. You’re begging at this point, I’m not sure you’re aware of it, but by then I’m not aware of my words either. I know only you and your heat, your body the truth I’ve long since memorized. The head of my length finds your hole and I push inside. I try to be gentle, but you don’t have that kind of patience. You ram yourself against me and I no longer have the wherewithal to hold you back. My hips slam up against yours. I’m blinded by the heat, the way your inner walls squeeze me. I’m a desperate man drowning, but still, my body knows the rhythm to fall into, as does yours.”

Erwin watches Levi as his toes curl into the sheets and his back arches searching for the fullness he needs. He feels helpless before Levi, his strength bleeding out of him from the overwhelming nature of their bond.

“Our love becomes a physical thing, Levi,” He says, voice hoarse. “I pound into you, but you’re the one filling me up. I don’t know how I find room for it all, every time it feels like more, but I do. I have to. Because I will always gladly take whatever you’re willing to give me.”

“All of it,” Levi gasps, he twists around, his body is shaking and it’s not the only one. “Everything. All of me. it’s yours.”

“I love you,” Erwin says because it’s all he can say. The words are so frustratingly small, but he says them because he has not yet found stronger words. “I love you, Levi.”

His body is moving. He stands up from the bed and circles to the front of it, standing over his beautiful partner. His need is impossible.

“Your teeth find my neck, my lips, and you bite down to stifle the screams, but they escape anyway, from both of us because both of our orgasms are too quickly spiraling, already past the point of stopping, they smash toward each other with each thrust and we know, _we know_ , what the other is feeling, what they’re thinking and breathing and wanting.”

Erwin’s hands settle on the mattress on either side of Levi. His knee finds the edge of the bed and he lifts himself onto it.

“Spread your legs,” Erwin commands, and Levi does it. Of course he does. He wants this, they both do. Levi’s problem is gone. It’s been gone for a while now. They both know that Erwin’s touch will be welcomed, grabbed hold of and worshipped.

_Now_ , Erwin lets himself think, his wait finally over. _Finally._

His hands are shaking too much, but he doesn’t need his hands. The blood flooding his erection is making him lightheaded. He knows that this will be the shortest round of sex they ever have, he’s already so close to the edge. But not as close as Levi.

His mouth descends, his chest is screaming as his heart races and pounds, his blood roaring.

_So close_.

His mouth is there, right there. His breath is frosting over the head of Levi’s erection. His mind a wall of static as base instinct takes over. His vision has narrowed, tunneling. He sees only Levi. His life is only levi. He goes to close that last inch of distance, and Levi ejaculates.

The static disappears, replaced by wonder as Erwin watches his partner’s hips jerk up. Levi’s semen hits his face in thin ropes, and Erwin can only give thanks to the unpatrolled view he has of the show. He tastes Levi on his tongue as the white drips from his lips, heady with the smell of his lover’s pleasure.

Levi’s body quakes. His hips shudder long after the jets of come stop, but eventually they fall quiet as Levi collapses atop the mattress, body coated with a light sheen of sweat, his breaths still burning from him like fire in a way that leaves no room for words. But Erwin manages to find his voice. His hands touch Levi’s hips, and the shock of skin after waiting so long sings in his veins.

“Beloved creature,” he whispers and presses a kiss to Levi’s spent erection. “You never cease to amaze me.”

He waits, his patience returned now with the sight of his love’s pleasure. Finally Levi’s hands find him, and pull Erwin over him like a living blanket. They kiss, and everything is right. Erwin’s world once again made whole by his perfect match.

“Didn’t think that was possible,” Levi mumbles against pliant flesh.

Erwin hadn’t known either. If he’d had any idea that he could make Levi orgasm without his touch he would have tried it years ago. But this kind of discovery, when made on your own, was the best kind.

“Here,” Levi mutters, pushing at Erwin’s shoulders. “Let me finish you off.“

“I can wait,” Erwin says, and wraps his arms a little tighter. He knows from experience that it doesn’t take all that long for his partner to be ready for another round. He’s already searching for Levi’s mouth.

Levi nudges his thigh up against Erwin’s still-swollen erection. “You sure about that?”

Erwin lets out a shaky moan. No, he hasto admit, he isn’t.

Levi laughs and it’s a beautiful sound. He pulls up the edge of the sheet and swipes at Erwin’s face, cleaning him.

“I love you too, old man,” Levi says, and his words aren’t even quiet as they leave him.

\--

**Author's Note:**

> As always when it comes to this pairing the sex i write is dripping with horrible amounts of gross overwhelming love. These men kill me with the never ending trust of their bond. Writing smut is hard, and writing convincing smut is harder, but I hope the result came out all right this time.


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